The Shell of Her Former Self
by WriterK83
Summary: At first you just want to feel. But then you realize that you're caught in a desperate search to find something that will hurt more than you do on the inside. Post-Somalia, WARNING for graphic depiction of self-harm.
1. Part 1

Hey guys, I know this is a little unrealistic given Ziva's strength of character, but I'm feeling a little dark and whipped this up. If I get the replies I'll continue, but if not no harm done – I want to write stuff that you all like.

Technically, this could be a continuance of What Happens Before You Die or it can stand on its own. I'll probably do a few different stories to build upon What Happens based on the feedback I got requesting more. However, those stories likely won't relate to the themes described here.

Let's say this is an experiment of sorts!

Also, in this installment italics indicate what is happening present day.

**WARNING THIS CONTAINS DESCRIPTIONS OF SELF-HARM. IF YOU THINK YOU MAY GET TRIGGERED, YOU PROBABLY WILL. **

….

_They say that the nights are the hardest. _

_That the littlest things will cause a flashback – a smell, a look, a move of the hand. _

_The most obvious remembrances – seeing a dead rape victim, perhaps – they say that will stay with you for days. _

_They are right, this much she knows. _

_It has been one month since her hands were freed. 31 days of flashbacks. _

_Stares. Awkward silence. Glass that's full of hairline cracks. _

_There are words that they use. Violated, tortured. _

_Traumatized. _

_No matter the language, such words simply cannot describe how you are no longer yourself._

_How you watch the days unfold as if one of Tony's movies. You see and hear and talk and give an occasional laugh. But you aren't really there. _

_You offer them the shell of the person they once knew. An exhausted act of remembering to antagonize Tony, pushing yourself to show joy in helping him steal the next chapter in McGee's novel. _

_And at night you writhe and pace and medicate. At first, you just want to feel. But then you realize that you're caught in a desperate search to find something that will hurt more than you do on the inside. _

…..

**Earlier That Day **

She has little patience for him.

When they first came across the marine's dead daughter – naked, throat slit, lying in some bushes off the base's soccer fields – he had given her a look.

She knew what he was asking – _will you be ok with this?_

Her way of saying yes was to be the first to approach the body, pressing a cold, limp finger into the scanner to verify identity.

But the real answer, of course, was _I am far from ok with this. _

Last week they had a dead female marine, but she had been shot randomly during a bank robbery.

This girl – with her clear complexion and raccoon-like mascara eyes – she was the first remembrance

Of his hand. Naked thighs pressed into the dirt, rocks. A desperate search for something to end it, something to erase the hell from which she was unfortunately….

"Ziva?"

She looks up. Tony has stopped photographing. She's not sure how long she has been sitting there.

"Our victim is Marissa Sanders. 15. Daughter of Colonel Sanders."

He barely nods because he is still looking at her, mind off the case. She knows what is running behind those eyes.

She pushes away from the body, rising until she is eye level with Tony, close enough to reach out and grab hold of the camera.

"I'll finish, if you want to check up on McGee's perimeter search, get an ETA on Ducky."

He pulls the camera away and she meets his gaze. "Tony – "

"You don't have to prove anything, Ziva." His voice is low and soft and pleading.

She stiffens, for only a split second, before she grabs his hand roughly.

It _hurts _and he lets go of the camera.

"I will finish, Tony." And then her back is to him and she's crouching beside the body.

He doesn't leave as her finger snaps furiously. He doesn't move as he wonders if it's just this case, just today, or if really, Ziva isn't ok.

….

_She pounds her fist onto the floor of her bedroom. The hurt explodes and she feels bruises float inside. _

_It is not enough to hurt more than knowing what you really are. _

…

**Earlier That Evening **

She flips the photo over, facedown onto her desk. Her eyes move onto the next one, but she can feel his sudden shift in attention. She looks up and her voice is low. It bites.

"What?"

His eyes are trained on her, as they have been for most of the day, yet unreadable across the dark squad room.

"It's late. Why don't we call it a night?"

She wants to scream at him.

What does he want? For her to exude an ounce of weakness? To falter?

Does he not understand each painful minute spent preserving the shell of her former self? How it is the only thing keeping her sane?

"Go ahead," she finally offers, releasing his gaze.

She returns to the photographs.

The girl in the photo has bruising and blood on her thighs, and Ziva's cheeks grow hot because all she can see is her own face in the photo.

And Tony is still staring and she _knows _that all he can see, too, is her face as that of a victim's.

…..

_She finds herself in the bathroom. She tells herself that she'll just look. That she'll sit here, think. That things will change tomorrow. _

_But she knows that she will do it. _

_She pulls out the razor, fresh and new and purple. Sits on the toilet. _

_And then her hands begin to fumble at the plastic around the blade. She moves carefully, precisely, until the small blade is free, gleaming in the palm of her hand. _

…

_It is not what he expected to be doing on a Friday night. He could have been in bed with Mindy or at Front Page watching the Nationals play. _

_But something isn't right. He drove by her apartment, twice. _

_He could tell himself that he just wants to talk. But talking could wait till tomorrow, and that thought, that weight, nagging at him. _

_That crimson mark he saw on her sleeve last week? _

_Cannot wait. _

…_._

_She picked the blade up with two fingers, carefully._

_If you did it quick and smooth it tore the skin open, deep and flowing with little bits of white._

_If you did it slow it was shallow but hurt more. You feel each cell of skin opening, each drop of blood beginning to breathe. _

_She placed the blade against her wrist and drew it once, fast, across the center. _


	2. Part 2

Hi all! I think enough of you are reading/enjoying this so I decided to continue.

Per last time, present day is indicated by the text in italics.

….

_He doesn't think twice about picking the lock when she doesn't answer. _

_He thinks too much when the apartment is still. No Ziva in the kitchen, living room, bedroom. _

_The hairs on the back of his neck stand up when he finds her sitting upright, back slumped against the bathroom cabinet. _

_Her left wrist rests loosely on the bathroom floor, a small puddle of blood in its wake._

…..

**Last week**

He sees the red on her shirt.

She has placed her hand on his desk, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the BOLO hits on the monitor.

A thin line of crimson stains the bottom of the tight cream sleeve.

Before she even sees for herself, she knows from the look on his face. Tony has caught a glimpse of her truth.

"Uh, why are you bleeding?"

She straightens, shrugging as she glances at the spreading crimson. She knows _exactly _which cut has reopened.

She throws a casual response as she leaves Tony's side, sitting back at her desk in search of a tissue. "Just a scratch from that warehouse search this morning."

Tony stands up, too, leaning against the front of his desk. Arms crossed. "You see Ducky?"

She laughs. "It is just a scratch, Tony."

"Okay Zee-vah," he replies, watching as she makes her way to the bathroom. He clenches and unclenches his jaw, his cop instinct asking if he's really reading this situation right.

But his gaze lingers for only a minute after she rounds the corner, before he shakes his head and returns to the BOLO results.

…

_At first he thinks she is dead – his head grows dizzy and his body explodes with heat – but he yells her name anyway – "Ziva!" _

_And then he sees that she is breathing, but silent. Eyes open, yet glassy. _

_He grabs her hand and holds it upright, yanking down a towel hanging from a hook behind him. _

"_Ziva," he pleads again, his voice sharp and biting as he wraps her wrist in the tan terry cloth. _

_Her lips do not move; he's not even sure she knows that he's there. _

_It is only when he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, does she speak.  
_

"_Tony," she starts, pulling her wrist out of his grasp. "It has stopped."_

_And he is left sitting there, heart pounding, mouth open, as she uses the bathroom counter to pull herself off the floor. Bloody towel left behind. _

_He knows what she means – that the bleeding has stopped – but all he can think is, _

_When did it start? _

….

**Last Week**

"You want Chinese or Indian?" He asked, placing several menus on her desk. "There's a new Indian place down the street I thought we could try."

"No Indian, Tony," called McGee, looking up from the restricted email account he was trying to hack.

"McSensitive, just because the last time you ate spicy food you spent three hours in the bathroom and missed Gibbs'…."

"Tony!" Jumped in an agitated McGee. "How many times do I have to tell you I have a delicate stomach?"

Ziva wanted to close her eyes and rub her temples. The amount of work to do on this case was insane enough, without Tony and McGee sharing their dysfunctional relationship with the group.

"McGee," started Ziva. "We will order you something you can eat. You will like it, I promise."

"Thank you, Ziva," offered McGee, shooting Tony a 'why can't you be this nice' look.

As McGee went back to hacking, Tony turned once more to Ziva.

"How's your scratch, Zee-vah?"

She held up her arm, cream sleeve replaced by that of a dark blue v-neck. "It's orange-y."

Tony chuckled. "Unless you have an orange covered – or flavored – band aid, I think you mean peachy, Zi."

She wanted to be home with a glass of wine and her bed and a razor.

"That too."

…

_She has put on a sweatshirt and is moving quickly in the kitchen, pulling plates and knives and mugs from the dishwasher. _

_He walks around the kitchen counter, toward her, but the dark look in her eye stops him. _

"_Normally I shoot people who break into my apartment."_

_He ignores the joke. "What's going on here, Ziva?"_

_She turns her back to him, placing a stack of plates in a corner cabinet. _

"_I think it is fairly obvious, yes?"_

"_Why, Ziva?"_

_She turns toward him, arms crossed against her stomach. "You should go, Tony."_

"_You know I can't leave you after…" He searches for words to describe what he's just witnessed. But all he comes up with, is, "…this." _

_She takes a few steps toward him, leaning against the counter. Their faces are close enough to where Tony would have normally debated kissing her. _

"_What do you think will happen, Tony?" Her voice is even and calm, as if she were asking about where to order dinner._

"_Do you really want me to say it, Zi?"_

_She doesn't, she realizes, and she pulls from him. _

"_Look, it is late. You have nothing to worry about, Tony." She leans forward once more and pats his cheek, turning on the Ziva that he had so willingly accepted, believed, all these days. _

_The anger on his face is visible when he speaks, though she does not falter when she realizes that Tony is no longer buying her front. _

"_Nothing to worry about? You took a razor blade to your wrist, Ziva. I don't need to tell you how easily you could have bled out." _

"_I was not trying to….do what you think, Tony." _

"_Then what were you d…?" It hit him, right then, as hard and quickly as if she had gut punched him. The blood last week – she wasn't trying to kill herself._

_And when he looked up from his realization she had changed. Her face was hard and her words stung. _

"_You brought me home from Somalia, Tony, but that does not mean you have any right to try and rescue me from the hell it created."_

"_Ziva, you don't have to go through…"_

"_That's right," she cut him off. "I do not have to do anything." _

_After __**everything. **__After Rivkin and Tel Aviv and Somalia – he had risked first his career, and then his life. _

_But as it turns out, he never really saved her. _

_He used his voice to throw the rage back at her. "Then why do you do it? You know Gibbs will yank you if he…"_

_And then she is yelling. _

"_I will never speak to you again if you say one word of this to Gibbs, Vance."_

"_Ziva…"_

"_Out, Tony! Now!" _

_He could barely breathe the air was so thick with his discovery, her pain. This wasn't how it should have gone. _

_They teach you, as a cop, how to deal with victims and yelling at her certainly…_

_Tony stopped himself, had to grab onto the counter for support. _

_Did he just call Ziva a victim? _

…_.._

**One Month Ago**

He thought of her, often. Whether she was eating and sleeping.

He wondered if she thought about him, too.

The anticipation of seeing her was like the year his grandmother was in remission. You never knew, if it would come back. And if it did, what it would look and act like.

Every ring of the elevator bell, he looked up. Searched for her face in the grocery store, or the park where she once ran.

And then one day, she was simply there.

She was healed and fresh faced and could walk without using him and McGee as crutches.

Strode right up to his desk and perched on the edge. Swiped a chip from his open bag, chewed thoughtfully before speaking.

"I see that you are well rested after your time in the desert."

And it was that simple. Ziva was back.

….

"_Let me sleep on your couch – tonight – and I don't tell Gibbs."_

"_Tony, you…"_

_She trailed off and it didn't take Tony's investigative skills to recognize that she had little, if no fight left in her tonight. _

"_Just for tonight?"_

_He nodded, his mind already spinning with what to actually do about….this…tomorrow. _

"_I will get the blankets."_

"_Great. I'm going to the bathroom."_

_It is only after she hears the door close does she realize he's used the bathroom in her bedroom. It is only after she makes up the couch, says a terse goodnight and closes her door for the night, does she realize he's removed all the razors from her cabinet. _

_And that the linoleum floor is now a dull white, as if it had never been marred by blood from self-inflicted wounds. _

_Almost as if nothing had happened at all. _

…

**Next Time…..**see if you can guess who this little exchange is between

"You know, Ziver, it's okay to have a hard time adjustin."

She keeps her eyes lowered.

"But what's not is for you to not come to me."


End file.
